'Anonymous' Vows Revenge Against Spain

Clandestine Web group Anonymous on Friday vowed revenge for the arrest of three of its members over their alleged involvement in the hack of Sony's PlayStation Network and various government Web sites.

Clandestine Web group Anonymous on Friday vowed revenge for the arrest of three of its members over their alleged involvement in the hack of Sony's PlayStation Network and various government Web sites.

In a brief blog post titled "V for Spain," Anonymous said simply, "Expect us," under a large image of the "V for Vendetta" logo. Anonymous has adopted the Guy Fawkes mask used by the title character in the "V for Vendetta" series as its symbol.

Earlier today, police in Spain announced that they arrested three people in Barcelona, Alicante, and Almeria. A server hosted in the city of Gijon was also seized, according to information posted on the Twitter feed of the Spanish police.

The hackers attacked the Playstation Network, as well as government Web sites in Egypt, Iran, Colombia, and Chile, officials said. They also targeted Spain's Central Election Board on May 18. Police released a screenshot that showed an IRC chat where organizers urged Anonymous members to attack the election board Web site, as well as those for the Spanish police and broadcaster RTVE, among others.

Police said they have been investigating since October 2010, when the country's Ministry of Culture was hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack over an anti-P2P bill that would have made it easier for the government to shut down Web sites that provide access to infringing content.

Police did not release details about those arrested, except to say that one of the individuals is 31 years old.

The fact that Anonymous is retaliating isn't all that surprising. Panda Labs analyst Luis Corrons said he expects Anonymous to retaliate since they are not used to being held accountable for their actions.

As Sophos analyst Graham Cluley pointed out, authorities are no doubt "hoping that that [the Gijon server] may yield clues which will help reveal the identities of other Anonymous activists."

Spain isn't the only target for Anonymous at the moment, however. The group said that on Thursday, it "launched a successful DDoS attack against the Turkish government, taking down several official government Web sites."

"Anonymous is protesting Internet censorship in Turkey. The Turkish government plans to implement a filter on Internet browsing on Aug. 22 under the pretense of protecting the youth from 'harmful elements on the Web,'" Anonymous said.

Update: On Saturday, Anonymous said it had taken down the National Police Web site. They might have another target, however: police in Turkey arrested 32 people associated with Anonymous for DDoS attacks.

Chloe Albanesius has been with PCMag.com since April 2007, most recently as Executive Editor for News and Features. Prior to that, she worked for a year covering financial IT on Wall Street for Incisive Media. From 2002 to 2005, Chloe covered technology policy for The National Journal's Technology Daily in Washington, DC. She has held internships at NBC's Meet the Press, washingtonpost.com, the Tate Gallery press office in London, Roll Call, and Congressional Quarterly. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from American University...
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